Don't run Win2k, ‘early adopter’ IBM tells staff

IBM's enthusiasm for Windows 2000 has cooled somewhat, according to an company internal memo obtained by US publication Smart Reseller. According to the memo, which is said to have been sent to all employees, "IBM employees are not permitted to directly or indirectly connect Windows 2000 to the IBM production network infrastructure". With recent announcements in mind, this ought to be more than a little embarrassing. IBM was announced as a "Microsoft Windows 2000 Global Launch Partner" back in January, at which point Microsoft VP marketing Deborah Willingham said: "THrough the development efforts at the IBM Center for Microsoft Technologies, its work with beta customers of Windows 2000, and its own early adoption of Windows 2000 IBM has developed hardware technologies, service and deployment experience that will be critical to the success of customer deployments." Ahem. Back in October IBM VP Dick Sullivan was telling us IBM was early-adopting Win2k as its standard desktop OS, and would be rolling it out to 300,000 seats. In December Microsoft and IBM announced a series of joint Win2k readiness initiatives, designed to "help the companies' mutual customers make a smooth transition to the new operating system." But now, says Smart Reseller, IBM is telling its staff that Win2k contains components that may "interfere with IP network services (DHCP function)" and that this could impact on the availability of IBM's worldwide network. It's not clear where this leaves the 300,000 seat rollout, but it's going to make things a little bit tricky for all those IBM employees who're helping customers migrate to Win2k. According to the memo IBM employees who need to develop or demo Win2k are allowed to do so "only in a development or demonstration environment." So presumably that means they can show customers what to do and then, er, not do it. ®